Certain enterprise-class servers utilize a chassis that houses many computing blades. Each computing blade may have multiple instances of major subsystems such as an agent subsystem, a central processing unit (CPU) subsystem, a memory subsystem, an I/O subsystem or a cache subsystem. Users of such servers often prefer high availability of system resources while maintaining a low cost per computing blade. It is possible that certain conditions may exist that cause one or more subsystems on a computing blade to fail to power-up properly. Alternatively, certain conditions may exist that cause one or more of the subsystems on a computing blade to fail after a power-up, forcing such failed subsystems to power-down. Either of these events may require the entire computing blade to power-down to protect the hardware contained on the computing blade, or for other reasons. Often, the computing blade will require service to be performed by a technician, and the delay between computing blade failure and the time when a technician is dispatched may be a number of days.
In this way, the failure of one or more subsystems on a computing blade during power-up, or a failure of a subsystem after power-up may render the entire computing blade unusable.